Written by

Matt Helms and Joe Guillen

Detroit Free Press Staff Writers

What the Detroit Charter says

Section 2-101: “A person seeking elective office must be a citizen of the United States, a resident and a qualified registered voter of the City of Detroit for one (1) year at the time of filing for office and retain that status throughout their tenure in any such elective office.” Section 3-111: “All candidates for elective office and elected officials shall be bona fide residents of the City of Detroit and must maintain their principal residence in the City of Detroit for one (1) year at the time of filing for office or appointment to office.”

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Opening up another assault on a major competitor, Detroit mayoral candidate Tom Barrow is claiming that Mike Duggan wasn’t a resident of Detroit for a year — as required by city charter — when he turned in his signatures to become an official candidate for mayor in the city’s August primary.

Representatives for Duggan‘s campaign dismissed the charge as a misguided attempt to remove one of the front-runners in the mayoral race and said Barrow’s interpretation of city election law is incorrect. But Barrow insisted Tuesday that he is correct.

“The city charter is explicit,” Barrow said after a mayoral candidate forum hosted by the Booker T. Washington Business Association on Tuesday afternoon at the MGM Grand Detroit Casino. “Mr. Duggan was two weeks short of that. He’ll be off the ballot; I’m absolutely convinced of that. He’s as good as gone.”

Barrow submitted a complaint Monday to the city clerk’s office saying that Duggan wasn’t a city resident for a year when, on April 2, he was the first candidate to turn in signatures to make the August ballot. Duggan legally became a Detroit resident on April 16, 2012, after moving to the city’s Palmer Woods neighborhood from suburban Livonia and registering to vote in the city that day, according to Barrow’s complaint. Duggan’s campaign did not dispute the April 16 date.

The new city charter, which took effect Jan. 1, 2012, says candidates for elected office must be city residents and registered voters for one year before they file for office.

“As Mr. Duggan is not in compliance with the Detroit charter’s residency requirement, he is ineligible for elective office on the Aug. 6, 2013, primary ballot,” Barrow’s complaint says. “This is a routine matter in failing to comply with the Detroit city charter’s residency requirement and non-certification is mandated.”

Melvin (Butch) Hollowell, a legal adviser to the Duggan campaign, said Barrow’s camp is misreading the city charter.

“He’s trying to prevent the people from deciding, and that’s just inconsistent with the law,” said Hollowell. “He’s just wrong as to what that means. The clear purpose of this provision in the charter is the filing deadline” on May 14, the last day candidates can turn in ballot signatures. “They wanted to make sure you were a resident and registered voter a year before the filing deadline.”

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City Clerk Janice Winfrey declined to discuss the matter Tuesday, saying it will be referred to the city’s law department and decided Thursday afternoon during a meeting of the city’s elections commission, which includes Winfrey, City Council President Charles Pugh and the city’s acting corporation counsel, Edward Keelean.

Barrow’s complaint about Duggan’s residency is his second against the former Detroit Medical Center CEO. Barrow, who is in his fourth mayoral bid, filed complaints last week that Duggan, fellow front-runner Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon and state Rep. John Olumba violated state election and campaign finance laws by failing to file campaign finance reports for old campaign committees that were formed to pursue other elected offices. That issue, too, is expected to be addressed by the elections commission Thursday.

Hollowell said the city charter and commentary from its creation make it clear that drafters of the charter were attempting “to square Detroit’s charter with state and federal law.”

“The city charter is very clear that what they were talking about is the filing deadline” and not the date a candidate turns in signatures, Hollowell said. “That’s the language that runs through election law in the states and across the country. It’s not a close legal question.”

Duggan did not respond to Barrow’s claims during or after the forum. Duggan’s representatives referred all questions to Hollowell, who is an election law expert who ran for Michigan secretary of state unsuccessfully in 2002.

Wayne State University Law School Dean Jocelyn Benson, who ran unsuccessfully for Michigan secretary of state in 2010, also took issue with Barrow’s complaint.

“It’s nonsensical to interpret the provision that strictly,” said Benson, who is a member of the city’s Board of Ethics, a position that precludes her from involvement in political campaigns or supporting individual candidates. “Clearly, if the individual who is filing for office is a resident of the city for a year prior to the filing, then that should be sufficient to comply with the law.”

Former Deputy Mayor Freman Hendrix, who was chairman of the commission that created the new city charter, said Tuesday he’s not a legal expert on the matter but believes that the intent of the new residency requirement in the charter was to make sure candidates were residents for a year before the filing deadline.

“That’s the filing deadline, not when you file your petitions,” said Hendrix, who said he is not backing any of the candidates for mayor.

Candidates Fred Durhal Jr., a state representative, Lisa Howze, a former state representative, and Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon also were at the forum sponsored by one of the city’s leading African-American business groups.

Candidate Krystal Crittendon, the city’s former top lawyer, said she was improperly left out of the forum given polls that have shown her among the top three candidates.